ON "NARRATIVES"

Thursday, July 21, 2016

In the Wake of the 2016 GOP Convention

The Republican Convention is over and, as a force representing a viable philosophic alternative to the Democrats, so is the Republican Party. Hence the double-entendre meaning of "wake" in the title. Let me add this post-mortem to my previous posted commentary about the 2016 election.

What has evolved most for me during this
past year is my understanding of supposed allies on the political right:
which of them are truly individualists who grasp and are committed to
the basic principles undergirding America, and which are simply cultural
tribalists waging war against their perceived cultural enemies.

The common core I see in those social conservatives who don't just
reluctantly tolerate Donald Trump, but wildly enthuse about him, is their
undisguised, gleeful tribalism. For them, the values of individualism,
and their expression in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are, at best,
the empty fluff of Fourth of July speechifying and talk-show blather. Such principles are not their basic value-priority or core
commitment.

The real question dividing the right today -- and
all along, actually -- has been: Which is absolutely foundational for
you: your commitment to your tribal-cultural affiliations, or your
commitment to the basic principles of America as outlined in those founding
documents?

For a long time, I had been snookered by many who
masqueraded as the latter kind of "constitutional conservatives." Right-wing radio talkers
(with Mark Levin and a precious few others being admirable exceptions), the Fox News
evening lineup, the Drudge and Breitbart websites, et al., have postured for
years, even decades, as principled defenders of the Constitution and
free markets. But the emergence of Donald Trump has exposed these
long-closeted tribalists for what they really are.

They have
thrown every one of their alleged principles overboard in order to support this
crude national statist, among them: their sanctimonious claims to
champion Christian virtues in one's personal life, to stand for property
rights against eminent domain overreach, to support free trade and free
markets, to oppose crony corporatism, to uphold constitutional limits
on government power, to back without reservations the Second Amendment, to
repeal (not "renegotiate") ObamaCare, to repeal (not "renegotiate") the
Iran nuke giveaway, to stand up against Vladimir Putin in Eastern
Europe, and on and on.

Only one election cycle ago, these same "conservatives" were railing mercilessly against those Republican
candidates, including Mitt Romney, who failed to pass muster on even a
handful of these "litmus test" issues. Such candidates were the hated
RINOs, the spineless compromisers, the "sell-outs of our constitutional
principles" who "negotiate" and "cut deals" with the liberal Democrats,
for their own aggrandizement.

But that was four whole
years ago. Things change, right? Now Trump comes along, and what
is his, and their, defining issue?

Tribalism -- specifically, all
those horrible foreigners coming here to infect our Traditional
American Culture and "take away American jobs."

Overnight,
"American Greatness" became equated not with the individualist
ideals of our nation's founding, but with preserving the demographic composition
of the American national tribe. It is now Us against Them -- and all
principles be damned. After all, they argue, who can afford the "luxury"
of fuzzy abstractions when American Culture is under assault?

Thus the stampede of the tribal right into the open arms of Trump -- and
the shocking revelations of the big-name conservatives who are members of
that tribalist gang. We watched them, dumbfounded, as they did an
about-face on issue after issue, on principle after principle -- and then turned against a host of Trump's GOP
rivals who, just four years before, they had extolled as conservative
heroes. But not anymore. Instead, they undercut and bad-mouthed these
candidates at every turn, handing the keys to their media platforms,
24/7, to a sordid creature much farther to the left than Dole, McCain,
Romney, McConnell, and Boehner ever were at their worst.

And in the convention's aftermath, they
are unleashing their greatest wrath upon Ted Cruz -- the solitary
political figure who dared to take on, from the inside and without
hesitation, the very Establishment that these "movement conservatives"
so long pretended to oppose. His mortal sin? His refusal, on principle, to join the rest of the tribe, bow, and then kiss the corrupt billionaire's gaudy ring.

Donald Trump's candidacy has at last
enticed these fakes to venture forth from their closets, cast off their
faux-individualist garb, and stand nakedly exposed as the cultural
collectivists they've been all along.

It has been a sobering
revelation to me just how many of these fair-weather "constitutional
conservatives" and "free enterprisers" are out there -- just how
far our nation has degenerated -- and just how great a distance we must
travel to win it back.

Any political revolution, however, must be preceded by a cultural revolution. And so I now return to doing the what I can on that front: crafting fictional narratives that offer my own vision of the kind of values and virtues a new culture will require.

3 comments:

I would not let the "reluctant tolerators" of Trump off the hook. This is not a normal election; it's not about left and right this time. Trump shows all the characteristics of narcissism and several of psychopathy. Voting for Trump over Clinton because he's further right than Clinton is risking the nation and the planet in return for a few more SCOTUS decisions going your way.

Oh good lord. No, it is not the apocalypse, contra Whitbeck. Trump is not going to lurch to the nuke button and start punching away on January 20. And those SCOTUS decisions do have an effect, like it or not.

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I'm a best-selling author and an award-winning journalist and editor. My first novel, "HUNTER," hit #4 on the Kindle Bestseller List and #1 in "Mysteries & Thrillers," as well as the Wall Street Journal's "Top Ten Fiction Ebook" list. It's available as a Kindle ebook and a trade paperback at Amazon.com; an audiobook edition is available through Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes.

The sequel, "BAD DEEDS" won the CLFA "Book of the Year 2014 Award." WINNER TAKES ALL -- the third installment in my Dylan Hunter thriller series -- was released in late 2017 to rave reviews.

I've contributed to Reader's Digest, The Boston Herald, PJ Media, and many publications.

Be sure to visit my FICTION blog, "The Vigilante Author," at: www.bidinotto.com, where I discuss thrillers, publishing, and the hero of my bestselling thrillers, Dylan Hunter -- "the new face of justice."